#since you live in america
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rainbowgod666 · 2 months ago
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...holy fuck red this should be a video on its own
I've been reading some stuff on punitive justice, and it made something click for me that I've observed a lot online but haven't been able to put into words before.
When someone does something wrong, that's bad, and the damage it does needs to be repaired while the person needs to try to do better in future to minimize repeating harm. We learn it in preschool - say sorry, don't do it again. If they keep at it, remove them from the situation where they can do the harm until they prove they're responsible enough to go back in.
So if it turns out someone DIDN'T do anything wrong, that should be a relief! There's no damage to fix, no internal errors to correct. Less work for everybody, literally no harm done. False alarm, all good.
The thing I've observed is, lots of people want them to have done something wrong. There's almost disappointment when it turns out there's no harm done. And I think that's because of this general undercurrent of punitive justice as morally righteous and desirable: someone does something wrong, you get to punish them. Turns out they're innocent? That's disappointing. Find another reason you get to punish them, or find another bad person you get to punish. But at the core of it is that desire to punish someone. Someone you can hurt in a way that makes you a better person for hurting them.
This particular brand of almost cannibalistic pseudo-justice is super common in tumblr, one of the most ostensibly liberal spaces on the internet; I see more borderline savagery in online discourse here than in the actually toxic parts of the internet that are just openly cruel for cruelty's sake. It's always thrown me for a loop, and has frankly also hurt me, because on the rare occasions I get personally dogpiled, it only actually stings when it makes me worry that I've legitimately hurt someone. If I did something wrong, or more realistically when I inevitably do something wrong, that would make it good and right for people to give me shit about it every day until I'm dead.
The thing that clicked for me most recently was this bit in Ijeoma Oluo's Be A Revolution:
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Punitive justice is specifically, uniquely appealing to people who have suffered injustices. Of course it's the Tumblr zeitgeist. Everyone here is a marginalized person failed by at least one system. Punishing someone for perceived injustice is how someone the system has deemed worthless proves their value in blood, even if the person being punished hasn't harmed you directly - even if they haven't harmed anyone. "Righteous" anger isn't about the target in these cases, it's about the inflicter. This is how much my pain is worth.
And that kind of violent validation is so alluring and so very dangerous. It seeks an outlet, wearing the justification of justice. Who's in reach? Who's an acceptable target this week? What's a good reason to use?
Is there anything they could do that would make me stop?
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fierykitten2 · 20 days ago
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Funny thing I realised earlier: the UK elections this year happened on America’s fireworks day (independence day) and the US elections this year are happening on Britain’s fireworks day (Guy Fawkes day)
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peonycats · 10 months ago
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just took a look at the aph greenland tag on ao3
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uncanny-tranny · 1 year ago
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I think another aspect of conservative thought people need to understand is the idea that it's all about dominance.
The reason why sayings like "we don't want to trans your kids, we want trans kids to live" is because, in the conservative mind, you are replacing their dominance with your own. It can never be about what is best for others, it is always about expressing absolute power and control.
Natural selection, at its ideal, will weed out the people who "shouldn't live." If their existence is a threat to the already-established hierarchy, then it's obvious that they shouldn't exist in order to challenge hierarchy.
While this certainly isn't a "conservative-only" mindset, it's a trend I have noticed more in conservative spaces. This is why I don't always think it's helpful to go on about how, "Oh, we don't want to threaten your worldview. We just want people to live 😊". You will fundamentally be threatening their power in their minds. Therefore, nothing you say can truly take away from the anxiety, fear, and anger at losing control that may be instilled.
#politics#transphobia#transphobia tw#used the whole 'we want trans kids to live' because i personally think it's a good example..#...but isn't the sole example of such...#...take for instance the gay marriage debates from the early 2010s...#...'if we legalize gay marriage it's ONE STEP CLOSER to them taking OVER america and legalizing [horrible thing]!'...#...that is the anxiety of Losing Control and Losing The Divine Hierarchical Power Bestowed To You Personally By Gd Himself...#...i'm not saying all of this to dissuade people from educating people. but i want people to be aware of this dynamic...#...and to decide if they can (or should) personally go up to bat for others to educate people...#...i don't think you will go very far if you try to educate people without understanding on SOME level how their thought process will be...#...because it is likely that you are educating somebody who is going to see the world VERY differently...#...and they will often interpret what you are saying VERY differently than how you intended it to be interpreted...#...again while this isn't solely a conservative issue (believe me i KNOW) i notice it much more in those spaces...#...and since i am in spaces that WANT to educate people about this i think it is apt...#...it isn't a bad thing to want to educate. but again it's not helpful to just assume others are going to interpret you the way you want...#...it's definitely why i stopped making so many posts about educating others. i just don't think i can do it well...#...or at least in a way that doesn't Feel Threatening (even if it Isn't A Threat)
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ask-thearchivists · 5 months ago
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Earth is a terrestrial planet, despite 70% of it's surface being covered in water. It has a molten iron core, and has existed for about 4.5 billion years. It's the third planet out from it's star (a yellow dwarf).
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The Cartologist: Oooh, interesting, is there more?
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The Cartologist: Oh, is that what the song about cheese comes from?
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The Coordinator: Yes, mortal planets that have had life for a long time do tend to experience multiple extinction events, which is one of the reasons it is important we tend to our duties.
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lgbtlunaverse · 6 months ago
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I think a lot of people's perception of "US centrism" on this site is "americans assuming us-specific problems are universal" but i've found it just as often if not more often manifests as the opposite. Usamericans thinking a problem people deal with worldwide (food deserts, late stage capitalism, bigotry) or a problem that did start primarily in the US but has been exported worldwide via cultural imperialism (this particular example is not the us but canada, but I sure did looooove having trucker protests in my country after they got 'inspired' by those in north america /s) are things only they have to deal with. I regularly get tags on this post that say something like 'blame the puritans for ruining american society' or will straight up go '#usa #fuck this country #i bet the rest of the world doesn't have this problem' I am from the Netherlands and have never set foot on the american continent.
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maxwell-grant · 2 years ago
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So yesterday was my birthday and I invited a friend over to watch some movies we’d been each putting off. He showed me They Live, which I’d somehow never seen, for the first time, and I repaid the favor by breaking his brain with Speed Racer and letting him see how everyone ever was 100% wrong about that movie at release and it is in fact the best thing ever, but in regards to They Live:
I expected a good time and had a really great one. I knew about it’s central alien allegory, and how it’s been co-opted by anti-semitic memes and right-wingers who think they’re being cute. I knew it inspired dialogue in Duke Nukem, I knew it was a John Carpenter film starring Roddy Piper with Keith David in it, and that was it. I was blissfully unaware of everything else, including the fact that it somehow winds up being a spiritual successor of “The Challenge of the Beyond”, the pulp writer round robin exercise nowadays most famous for it’s H.P Lovecraft - Robert E.Howard parts.
There’s a post on it that floats around regularly and I’ll link here for better explanation, but in short: Lovecraft’s section of this story had the protagonist George faint from terror constantly and go mad after turning into a giant alien centipede, which was followed by Robert E.Howard immediately retconning said madness in his opening line and having the character embrace his new life as a horrid centipede beast in a new planet and go on a conquering rampage of “titanic adventure” as George the Centipede Barbarian. I bring up George the Centipede Barbarian not because it’s funny, but because They Live intentionally pulled off a very similar kind of brutal tonal dissonance.
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They Live is very comparable to The Thing in the sense that it is a 50s concept told through 80s filmmaking and distorted accordingly, to the extent that the black and white parts are not just colored differently, but shot differently from the rest of the film in a way that’s far more reminiscent of 50s horror films. Our protagonist is an 80s meathead cowboy who lives in a struggling urban landscape with mysteries and horrors he never quite understood but continue to plague him and those around him, and he has a moment of truth when he puts on magical sunglasses and finds out that he’s been living in a Twilight Zone episode the whole time, and so has everyone. The black and white allegorical terrors won and have been running everything all along, and that is the point the episode should end with our protagonist horrified and broken, “wouldn’t that be fucked up / doesn’t this remind you of something / these horrors are real” message conveyed, episode over.
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Except our protagonist is an 80s meathead cowboy, so instead of surrendering to the horrors after finding out everything is a monstrous lie, he fights back with a shotgun and a bag of one-liners. Dude just immediately, like not even 10 minutes after he first puts on the glasses, starts blasting alien cops and bankers and spaceships. I really did not think that “bubblegum” one-liner happened that early in the movie. This dissonance would have been wonderful regardless but it helps that it’s done so intentionally.
I really didn’t expect that the movie was this 100% completely blatantly unsubtle about the true nature of the alien ghouls as bloodsucking capitalists. It’s not some veiled allegory that can be left to interpretation, the movie tells you repeteadly and explicitly what it is about. The film tells you that the aliens are weaponizing communist paranoia to gain control over cops, preceding a line “We'll do anything to be rich” and then a description of them as “They are free enterprisers. Earth is just another developing planet, their third world” is actual dialogue from the film and that’s just before we learn the aliens all wear expensive watches, that most of the cops going around brutally gunning down the resistance are humans who sold out, and get scenes of the aliens and humans standing around in suits congratulating each other on profit margins. I don’t meant this as an insult but it’s frankly cartoonish in how unsubtle it is, it’s insulting that John Carpenter even had to set the record straight with Yes This Was About Capitalism and Reagan and Yuppie Bloodsuckers You Stupid Fucks like the movie isn’t hammering the point constantly.
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If you haven’t watched it, did anyone ever tell you that the inciting incident of the movie is the protagonist being radicalized by police brutality? Yeah, funny, nobody ever talks about what happens in the movie before George puts on the sunglasses. The first 20 or so minutes are about the protagonist, George Nada, arriving in the city and struggling to find a job or place to stay and being offered one by Keith David’s character Frank, who takes him to a homeless community. They have a handful of dialogues together where Frank repeteadly expresses a cynical viewpoint towards life under You-Know-What, over opportunities turning into traps and steel mills giving themselves raises by screwing workers over, and George brushes him off stating he still believes in America, he still believes in getting a fair shot.
George is quickly and immediately reduced to horrified bystander as the police storms his community and destroys their church and goes around beating up them up and evicting tents by bulldozer, while George runs around trying to help and save at least one of them. The next time we see him, he puts on the sunglasses and learns the awful truth and starts his rampage (framed in no uncertain terms as an act of revolution) by doing, what else, shooting cops. Or, well, aliens who approach him as cops and tell him that, now that he sees them, they can work out a deal to profit together if he just goes quietly. The movie makes it as obvious as it could possibly make it.
So yeah, watch They Live, it’s Duke Nukem vs The Twilight Zone’s Episode on Capitalism (with Extended “Guys Being Dudes” Action, I’m glad I didn’t know about that alleyway fight scene beforehand). Also watch Speed Racer, it’s glorious, and it has the exact same villains. Had a really great time yesterday with both.
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s0fter-sin · 1 year ago
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less a continuation and more of a thought bubble but ghost would hate price in this au
when he pulls him out of the gulag, so many of soap’s new behaviours click into place. things that never made sense to him as a natural progression of who soap was, that aren't just a product of walling himself off and turning his heart to stone
his soap never smoked. always complained when ghost lit up about the damage it did to the lungs, how it would slow him down in the long run
his john, always trying to be the best soldier
that's why seeing him suck on a cigar like it's second nature is so jarring. even more so when he'd only take a few puffs; enough for a taste and to make smoke coil through the air around him. always the same brand, always left to burn down in his fingers
then ghost sees him gift his cigar box to price, something that took pride of place on his desk practically before the man clears medical and seeing the way they both relax as he sets a match to one makes him realise
in an effort to run away from soap, john had tried to mould himself into price
god forbid ghost ever reads soap's journal. he's heard the "what the hell kind of name is soap” story from him, of the first time he'd ever met the captain and if he ever saw his words echoed in john's hand? saw just how far the man had wormed his way, so deep into him that he was speaking with his tongue?
price's monologues, making himself larger than life all in an effort to make this shitstorm feel more grand than just another war they're all trying to live through, acting like he’s being profound when he’s really just dodging anyone that questions him
letting price take roach out from under his wing like soap didn't identify with the kid the second he saw him, all of his self-deprecative habits hitting tenfold as he blames himself for every stray bullet; as if price could've plucked them from the very sky
the way soap steps back without a word of protest to let price command the team he handpicked and price just accepting? like his years of leadership mean nothing, like john means nothing after trying so hard to follow in his footsteps, just to be tossed aside
the rage ghost would feel at his indifference, as if soap’s behaviour is to be expected and not a series of red flags. add the nuke mission and his actions during and after shepherd’s betrayal? ghost would despise him
#this instalment brought to you by mactavishs journal bc holy shit#his obsessive hyper perfectionism is heartbreaking#he sees literally everything as his fault#every failure every mistake every accident he always looks for something he couldve done better#then increases his training to /make/ himsef better#the way he sees himself in roach and wants to help him become a better soldier like price did for him#only to immediately give him to price bc who better to turn him into a better soldier than price#there is so much characterisation in this thing and it blows my mind that it wasnt an ingame easter egg you could find and read#its an actual journal you could buy#it completely changes his dynamic with price from mentor and mentee to this godlike hero worship#and ghost finding out that soaps changed himself so much for this insane guy who almost nuked america?#that he cant see beyond his thirst for vengeance that soap would do literally anything for him#the shepherd betrayal and prices ‘you have to trust someone to be betrayed. i never did’ and you never thought to warn soap??#the rest of the 141 you can understand but hes so callous in that scene#and since ghost and roach live through it i just know ghost would go apeshit for treating soap like hes not worth the dirt under his boots#coming out of my cage and ive been doing just fine.txt#talk to me ghost#09 soapghost#09 soap#09 ghost#captain mactavish#ghoap#soapghost#ghostsoap#cod mw2#ghost cod#soap cod#captain price#we’re a team. ghost team#save post
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textingtroublesanswers · 6 months ago
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What? Why wait? I have a very loose understanding of this line of work. There are... what's the word... ceasefires, yes? - Chef Anon
"The ceasefires don't last very long & ones longer than two days only happen around christmas." Dell explains.
Mikhail grumbles, "One week is not long enough to go back to Russia, spend time with family properly, & come back. Is almost 5 days of travel, only 2 days of rest."
Ludwig sighs, "Germany is technically closer, & there are more options for travel. But getting from the base to the nearest airport takes time, then usually it isn't a straight flight from the US to Europe, so it takes at least a day. If we wanted to visit my home town of Rottenberg, that means even more travel from the nearest airport. There might be one in Stuttgart, but I don't know if it is an international airport or not... And then, we still have to make the trip back on time if we don't want to get into trouble with Mann Co. Travelling between countries is never easy."
"And is another problem too, not everyone on team likes flying. Might be problems with getting babies on plane, they are very young. Boat journey is even longer."
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knackeredforever · 1 year ago
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We like to talk about reading comprehension a lot on this site but no one in the history of humankind has worse reading comprehension than the people who were convinced to join the military because of the metal gear games.
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fictionadventurer · 1 year ago
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#so my brother found a box full of documents#from when some semi-distant relative was researching family geneaology#and all my time reading old letters on the loc website came in handy#because it meant i could decipher the handwritten document#of my great-great-grandfather's life story#and read it for everyone as we hung out before family sunday dinner#and the pressure is now on for all the unmarried family members#we've got a legacy to live up to with courtship stories#it seems my great-great-grandfather came to america after a failed engagement#a few years later he met a girl and her parents outside of church#the father hired him to work on his farm#three days later the girl rode with him in a wagon somewhere on some farm business#and she was like 'i've been thinking about you day and night since i first saw you and this is our first chance to speak alone'#and she was like 'we should get married' and he agreed and they shook hands#though they did wait until the next sunday to formalize the engagement#they waited three months to ask for her father's blessing#which they got#they got married two months later#and were married for 35 years#until the morning of the day they were scheduled to take their first out-of-state trip#(he was excited to give her a chance to travel after a life of knowing only home and work)#and he woke up to find her dead beside him#he was writing this not long after and you can tell he was heartbroken#so the marriage was clearly successful#so anyway my one brother was like 'now i feel unsuccessful. i've never found a woman who wanted to marry me after three days'#and my married brother told all us unmarried ones that he expects us to be engaged by next week#clearly it can be done#and anyway it's so interesting to know the details#after only vaguely knowing this guy's name
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beananium · 9 months ago
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[oc art] the guy in my dreams i went on a coffee shop date with during the apocalypse while we were both running from the cops <3
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n7punk · 11 months ago
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a techie i know got me the orient express for christmas and it's so fucking sexy i know 0 things about trains but goddamn do i love them so much it's definitely going up there in top 5
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an-incoherent-mess · 6 months ago
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So I'm really into genealogy and have been for a few years now and I'm blessed with being really good with names and dates etc. So in conversation I can remember like a ridiculous amount of:
Jane Doe Smith Johnson
b. 1805 Tennessee d. 1879 Missouri
Married 1828 to John Patrick Johnson. Had five children. Died of TB
Etc etc
And that's cool enough apparently but I've mostly been using it for
A. Making up bullshit but real sounding names for stuff (i.e my name is Emily Stewart, Grace Kolár, etc). The point is that they're normal sounding and varied.
B. Having a bizarre frame of reference for historical events. Like "oh [small town],[state] 1942 had [random] event happen? My 1st cousin 4x removed got married there that year, small world!"
It's so dumb, like I'll read about some historical event from my area (where I've had family in the vicinity of since the 1840s) and I'll link up the time frame in my head and be like hmm... I wonder what 3rd great aunt Helen thought about that happening next door to her church.
#anyways im haunted by my ansesters and their lives#and driven actually crazy when i hit a dead end until ive solved it#like if i dont figure out credibly who my 3rd great grandfather's parents are soon im genuinely going to lose touch I'm serious.#i realized the other day that id been 'investigateing' it since Jan 2021 DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFERENT MY LIFE IS COMPARED TO THEN?!#and I'm not like casual.. I am multiple times a week searching the LoC as well as physical genealogical libraries for records#it lives in my brain like a tumor#he was born in 1857 in 'western' America this isn't fog of shit#its goddanm out there!#part of the obsession is because this particular ancestor is where my surname came from#he's my paternal paternal paternal grandfather.. yea... I'm just like curious as to specifically where my surname originated#sometimes especially on my mom's side I can track this shit down to a specific small european towns and I can find neat historical stuff#but this guy is just a fucking mystery#he appears in Oklahoma in the 1870s has like 15 children and then offs himself after losing money gambling#oh my god im actually ranting#and I guess it bugs me more than others because he has a very prominent newspaper trail#there are tons and tons of mentions of this guy#he has a long ass obituary but nobody ever fucking mentions where he came from other than like vague ass statements#his obituaries literally contradict each other too#I have searched everywhere for any misspelling of this guy's name#but his name is very easy to spell it's freaking William and the last name is very easy as well its a third person singular verb#ugh#anyways#ive cooled off#geneology#is interesting as fuck honestly
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makedamnsvre · 4 months ago
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recently ive been getting really sick of my neighbors i wish that i had a bunch of money so that i could buy up their houses and only let people i live live near me
#neighbors 1 used to be friends but theyre trumpies and also neglect and borderline abuse their dog#i like river hes not a bad dog but hes not trained well and is a very large and powerful dog and really really wants to kill my cats#and they just let him loose wander in the road wander into other peoples yards and hes trapped me and my mom outside because#he tries to force his way into our house if we try to go back inside of our house and i kinda dont want my cats guts splattered everywhere#neighbors 2 have a fenced in yard with a lab and a husky that they leave outside all of the time in their yard#as far as i know they dont have a dog house or even food and water out there and absolutely no toys and the dogs bark constntly#probably because theyre so bored outside in the hot weather usually without shade and no entertainment they bark at each other#or anyone in the yards of the neighboring houses or they bark at the door begging to be let back inside or bark at the windows#and theyre patriots too they got one of those huge skeletons last halloween and theyve kept it up ever since changing out the spotlight#for holidays which initially i really liked i thought it was funny but then for memorialday/july 4th they dressed in patriotically#and i hate america so . i hate them and how they neglect their dogs#neighbors 3 they are related to the one good neighbor BUT. theyre married (?) and they scream at each other arguing all of the time and#because of the geography of where we live it echos right to our house very loudly and it gives me anxiety and they have a kid or kids#who sometimes cry loudly because they scream yell at each other loudly i kinda hope they (not the kids) go to hell#neighbors 4 i . im not sure if theyre newer here but they also have dogs but so far theyve kept them on leashes i think?#except for that one time where their dog just. walked up to me. idk if they let the dog loose on purpose or if it was accidental#but recently me and my mom were outside messing with the garden and They are also a couple and were screaming at each other#also ! i love straight people 😍 please breakup or get a divorce or move away or go to hell youre fucking crazy people go to therapy#and then theres the people on super loud motorcycles or in super loud cars and then theres the other neighbors with the isra hell flag#and the other neighbors that i SUPER SUPER SUPER HATE and have hated for YEARS ecause i went to school with one and hes#racist as fuck i hope he dies or something. and because of them we dont even go down the road that way#they have free roaming animals that would go into the road and they run some ? atv repair or something out of their house and sometimes#completely occupy the whole road loading shit or something. like if you want stereotypical redneck assholes its them#and i hate all of these people so much. mutuals you should live here instead of them. its the blue ridge mountains its higher altitude#its pretty but sometimes it rains and causes something of a 'creek' to flow but were on a mountain so it flows down and away#and well sometimes the sewer smells really bad for some reason idk but like . its fine dont worry about it#and bears might drag your trashcans up the mountain but just dont leave food outside and they wont do that#we have a . shockingly beautiful ?? dumpster on the road too so its okay 👍#dear lird i just scrolled up and thats a lot of words . o well
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anthropomorphicbeancake · 1 year ago
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Atrocities happening to innocents that are a part of the oppressor state or group, is still the fault of the oppressor, not the oppressed for using the same tactics in their defense.
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